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Alicante is dominated by the Santa Barbara Castle on Mount Benacantil, a Moorish fortress that has been in almost continuous military use since the 9th century and which offers the most unambiguous view in the Costa Blanca: the city spread below, the Explanada de España's palm-lined promenade running along the waterfront, the marina, and then the Mediterranean going flat and blue all the way to Ibiza on a clear day. The castle is reached by lift through the rock from the beach below, which is either impressive engineering or architectural cheating depending on your perspective.

The Explanada de España, the main waterfront promenade, is paved with six and a half million marble tesserae in a wave pattern designed in the 1950s.

It is the social spine of the city, lined with bars and the terrace seating of restaurants that fill up at the 9pm dinner hour with a mix of locals and visitors that feels genuinely Mediterranean rather than tourist-managed. The Barrio Santa Cruz, the old Moorish and Christian neighbourhood climbing the hill behind the cathedral, has some of the most photogenic white-walled streets in the province.